liquidguru

i was very happy to finally film this wonderful event

 

Even though Lembeh is all about small things, some things are smaller than others. And they don't come much smaller (or harder to film) than Idiomysis.

These are a tiny little crustacean that seem to hover around like flies. They are only a few millimeters long and are always in constant motion. This makes it very difficult to photograph or film them.

It has been a pet project of mine, over the last year or so, to try and get video of them, using my woefully inadequate equipment. My idea is simple...use the slow motion feature to capture these creatures, so you can actually see them. The trouble is twofold. One: The depth of field is very very small, and it's impossible to re-focus, either manually or automatically, at these distances and speed that the Idiomysis move. Two: When I hit the 'slow motion' function on my camcorder, it goes into a three second 240fps auto mode. you hit it and it immediately takes the 3 second shot, with no control, no re-focusing...

So for a shot of these Idiomysis to come out I need the tiny little thing to just move up and down while it happens to be in focus, and not to move back or forth away to towards the camera. Believe me , this is not something that happens very much...

But finally, today, I think I have enough to present the world's first macro slow motion (nearly all in focus) video of these creatures. They are fascinating little things, and have wonderful eyes, bodies and it is really cool to finally be able to see one.

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Hi guys,

I've been contacted twice on the last couple of days, once from someone doing a show for Nat Geo and once from someone doing a show for Discovery. Both have found clips online and asked if they can use them for parts of their shows (different shows and clips)

Now the thing is they both say they have limited or no budget and can I supply the clips for free and a credit at the end? I would obviously like my footage to be used, but I'm really not sure that a commercial channel should be asking for free clips. This is not fair on me for anyone else who has a business trying to make a few bucks of some very rare and unusual critters. I'm 99% certain I'm going to say no, unless I get paid.

Opinions?

Thanks

Kaj

I'm sure that many of you may have seen these before, usually as you are descending on a dive. I've seen them in the Caribbean and South East Asia, so I'm presuming they are pretty much everywhere......but what are they exactly? Any info welcome

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Thanks,

Kaj

We found this two shrimp, both of which we hadn't seen before. Does anyone have any idea on species?

This first one is a small shrimp, approx 1-1.5cm long. He was living on a hard plate coral, which is unusual. If you look very closely you can see it has very transparent legs and long transparent pincers that push out in front. It also has what look like very strange eyes coming out of the top of it's head.

[vimeohd]57780041[/vimeohd]

The second looks like a Coralliocaris sp. Though it's carapace looks like the Fingerprint Coral Shrimp, it's arms, pincers and tail have very different patterns. This makes me think that it could be a new type of Corlliocaris.
Like the other Coral Shrimp it lives exclusively in Acropora hard coral and is very difficult to find or video, as it is at the bottom of the coral branches, hidden from view.

[vimeohd]57780040[/vimeohd]